My 14 month old wakes every night crying as if he doesnt know where he is

I dont know whether this is normal or if its a product of the constant going back and forth from mine to STBX's house every 2 weeks, so bear with me. For the past week DS has been waking about 2 hours after he falls asleep. He's not wet, he had a bottle before bed so he's not hungry either. He wakes up and looks around like he's very confused and starts crying hysterically. As soon as I go in and pick him up and give him his binky and walk him around his room, he falls asleep on my shoulder and goes right back down to sleep. STBX said he did the same thing for him last week at his house.

DS is 14 months old so I really dont know whether this is some sort of night terrors and its a normal developmental thing. My gut tells me though that with him going from my house to STBX's house in NC every 2 weeks (plus, sometimes when he's with me we would sleep at a friend of mines house overnight) its getting very confusing and he never knows where he's waking up I'm starting to really worry that that's the case...

Re: My 14 month old wakes every night crying as if he doesnt know where he is

Hard to tell but if its a developmental thing then its normal and if its his change of routine, he'll adjust to that too. its good that you are able to reassure him and he falls back to sleep when you go to him. Try not to sleep at your friend's house if you want to limit the change in routine but i don't know if its necessary or not.

Re: My 14 month old wakes every night crying as if he doesnt know where he is

How are you initially putting him to sleep every night? Are you rocking him? Is there a noise machine that plays only at bedtime, etc?
A lot of times, babies do wake in the middle of the night and get scared because the conditions in which they fell asleep are no longer the conditions they're waking to. So if you were rocking him to sleep, let's say, and he wakes in his crib and is alone, then it's confusing and scary for him.
I think it's called sleep associations or accommodations. I forget which one, but basically if you have the exact same conditions at bedtime as there will be when he wakes in the middle of the night, then he'll just go back to sleep.
Ferber talks about it in his books. It makes a lot of sense and he gives the example that if you wake in the middle of the night and your pillow is on the floor, you just pick it up and go back to sleep, but let's say you wake up and your pillow is gone and no where to be found, you'd be freaked out, right? Well, apparently it's the same for a baby. If they wake and the conditions are basically the same as bedtime, they go right back to sleep, but if they're different, then they have that scared feeling of something not being right.
Anyway, I guess my point is, make sure there's nothing at bedtime that isn't being reproduced in the middle of the night for him so that he can feel comfortable and safe. It worked for my DD when we had this problem. Good luck!

Re: My 14 month old wakes every night crying as if he doesnt know where he is

Re: My 14 month old wakes every night crying as if he doesnt know where he is

DS did that for almost a week and it turned out to be an ear infection... has he been sick?